Descrizione

8vo (149x93 mm). 101, [3] leaves. Collation: A-N8. The two final leaves are blank. Full-page allegorical woodcut on l. A1r bearing Charles V's coat of arms. Colophon on l. N6r. On l. N2r begins the Lettera del serenissimo Re de Romani scritta in Praga à di X. di luglio nel anno 1547, al dottor Gamiz suo ambasciadore apresso la Cesarea Maestà sopra li successi di Bohemia. Later stiff vellum, inked title on spine. Ownership entry (?) on the title page. A good copy.
First official edition in Italian. The work was first printed in Spanish in Venice in 1548 at the expense of Tomás de Zornoza, the Spanish ambassador to Venice, and was immediately translated into Italian by the author himself. Despite the existence of an edition in Italian printed in Venice in 1548 with no indication of the typographer, this second edition in Italian is in all likelihood to be considered as the first official edition as it was financed by the same Zornoza who also financed the edition in Spanish and, moreover, it contains an allegorical woodcut with the arms of Charles V and a letter from Ferdinand I to ambassador Juan Alonso de Gámiz, dated 10 July 1547 and sent from Prague, which are absent from the 1548 edition in Italian.
Marquis Luis de Ávila y Zúñiga was senior commander of the knightly Order of Alcántara and served under Charles V, accompanying him as ambassador to Rome and in the military campaigns of Tunis (1535) and the battle of Mühlberg (1547) against the Schmalkaldic League. In his ‘Commentary' he recounts the events that took place during the battle of Mühlberg, which opposed the imperial army of Charles V (on the occasion portrayed by Titian on horseback) and the League of Protestant princes led by John Frederick, Elector of Saxony. While the text celebrates and extols Charles V for his military prowess, it is also an important eyewitness account of the battle.
Edit 16, CNCE3573; Index Aureliensis, 110.685; Palau, 20506.